Murdering people -- for vacations

The human rights situation in Colombia is worsening according to international delegates who are working  to monitor and improve that country's human rights situation. Indigenous minorities, environmentalists, and even human rights workers themselves are routinely assaulted and killed.

BOGOTÁ, COLUMBIA (Catholic Online) - According to records from Information System and Attacks on Human Rights Defenders in Colombia, 32 human rights workers have been murdered, and 174 were assaulted in 2009 alone. Between July 2010 and May 2011, those numbers grew to 54 murders and 255 assaults.

Human rights defenders are being attacked as they work to defend blacks and indigenous minorities in the South American country. Additionally, civil strife between ultraconservatives and leftists continue in the troubled country.

According to Denis L'Anglais, a representative of Lawyers Without Borders Canada, "I have visited Colombia six times since 2006, and I continue to be shocked because the situation isn't improving."

"Someday someone will have to answer for their crimes against humanity committed in Colombia," he added.

Human rights activists initially began working in Colombia as it was learned that the previous president, Alvaro Uribe, was possibly using illegal wiretapping against journalists, political opponents, activists, and even Supreme Court judges. The wiretaps were carried out by that country's intelligence agency, the DAS.

Human rights officials claim that the DAS followed up their wiretaps by threatening, attacking, murdering, prosecuting, and even raping the people they targeted.

A preliminary investigation has helped to substantiate these allegations, and in response the DAS was shut down in November. The investigation is continuing.

In a parallel investigation, activists are trying to prosecute claims that the military routinely and systematically killed innocent civilians - as a matter of course. 

The killings are referred to as cases of "false positives". Activists use the term false positives to describe innocent people who were killed based on the false allegation that they were members of guerrilla insurgency groups.

The cause of these killings is chilling. Soldiers were offered incentives for killing rebel insurgents. Those incentives included weekend passes, cash, promotions in rank, and even overseas vacations. 

Rather than risk their lives fighting insurgents, members of the armed forces tricked young men from poor neighborhoods into answering fake job offers. These young men merely looking for work, were seized and forced to dress in combat fatigues. Once dressed, they were systematically executed by the soldiers who would then present the bodies as proof they had killed insurgents, and thereby claim rewards.

The current president, Juan Manuel Santos, took office in August 2010. He was Uribe's  former defense minister. He has made official calls for the violence against human rights and peacekeepers to come to an end, saying that protection of human rights is "an essential and profoundly democratic, ethical and human commitment."

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Despite his public commitment, murders of human rights activists, environmentalists, and others who are unpopular with the military or the government have only increased.

The wholesale slaughter of indigenous peoples, minorities, human rights workers, and political opponents, has escalated the situation in Colombia to a human rights disaster of the worst magnitude. It remains to be seen if the current government, and the international community at large has the will and the ability to do anything about it.

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